Bernadine Routh

Bernadine Routh (née Lyons), 78, of Indian Trail, North Carolina, passed away on September 25, 2025, in Chicago, Illinois. She was born on July 3, 1947, in the Bronx, New York, to Aguster Lyons and Bertha Howard.

Bernadine graduated from high school in 1965 and married Russell Routh on March 11, 1967. Over the years, she worked a variety of jobs, including as a telephone operator, a brief period with the United States Postal Service, customer service for a national floral delivery service, and preparing meals at a school for children with disabilities. Whatever the role, she approached her work with diligence and pride.

While living in Manhattan, New York, Bernadine met Jehovah’s Witnesses through their door-to-door ministry. Initially accepting literature simply to end the visit, she set it aside until one day, while cleaning a closet, she came across the book The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life. After reading it, she contacted her older sister, Doris, who had begun studying the Bible with Jehovah’s Witnesses months earlier. Encouraged by her sister, Bernadine requested a Bible study from the next Witness who came to her door. That study began in 1971, and she was baptized on August 5, 1972.

Bernadine was an avid reader who loved to study and learn. She was exceptionally skilled with her hands and took great satisfaction in figuring out how things worked. As a young woman, she wanted to take wood shop in high school instead of home economics, but at the time, girls were not permitted to do so. As one of seven children who lost her father at a young age, she was already helping her mother, who was raising the family on her own, by managing household responsibilities and caring for younger siblings.

She later became an industrious homemaker and an accomplished seamstress, making clothing for her children, including popular “designer jeans” and winter coats for her daughters, along with performing alterations for the entire family. When the family moved to Deer Park in Long Island, New York, she reupholstered furniture, made curtains, and planted flowers. She continued sewing well into her seventies. Bernadine also loved crossword puzzles and could often be found working on them from the Sunday newspaper, magazines, and especially Awake! magazines.

Bernadine and her husband, Russell, were enthusiastic do-it-yourselfers long before it was popular. Together, they tackled many home projects, including laying tile in the kitchen of their Long Island home. Deeply interested in health, Bernadine was ahead of her time, introducing her family to healthier eating, herbal and natural supplements, massage, reflexology, and other forms of alternative medicine. She loved solving problems and seeing a project through to completion.

Known for her hospitality, Bernadine often opened her home, located just two blocks from the Kingdom Hall, as a gathering place for service meet-ups, after-service snacks, Bible studies, and occasional midweek fellowship. Her love for people moved her to expand her skills in order to help others spiritually. She learned sign language so she could communicate with and support deaf ones in the congregation, taking turns with other sisters interpreting meetings so they could fully benefit. With encouragement from fellow pioneers, she began Regular Pioneering, spending 90 hours a month in the ministry around 1981 or 1982. Those she studied with described her as tough but deeply loving, devoted to Jehovah, and genuinely concerned for their spiritual well-being. Bernadine had a strong personality and was firm in her adherence to Bible principles. But when correction was needed, she accepted counsel and worked hard to apply it.

She was best known for her smile, her laugh, her cooking, her wit, and her skillful, heartfelt teaching during Bible studies.

Bernadine is survived by her loving husband, Russell Routh; her daughters, Dana (Todd) Lawson and Dawn (Kristopher) Barber; her granddaughter, Jaél Dawn-Simone Pettigrew; Jaél’s sisters, Rhia Lawson and T’Keyah Moseley; her sisters, Bertha Marie Josey, LaDoris Diggs, Yvonne Hargrow; and a host of nieces, nephews, great-nieces, and great-nephews. She was preceded in death by her father, Aguster Lyons; her mother, Bertha Howard Lyons; her brothers, John Lyons and Jerry Lyons; and her sister, Gloria Jean Lyons.

A virtual memorial will be held on Saturday, February 28 at 12:30 on Zoom.

Arrangements made by Chicagoland Cremation Options in Schiller Park, Illinois.